SECTION E-GEOLOGY AND GEOGRAPHY SECTION E of the American Association for the Advancement of Science met this year in conjunction with the Geological Society of America and the Association of American Geographers in the Civil Engineering building of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, on December 27 and 28. Following the present agreement whereby the affiliated societies take charge of the program whenever they meet jointly with Section E, the section had no program of its own. The address of the retiring vice-president, Professor George H. Perkins, of the University of Vermont, upon the subject, "Vermont physiography, was delivered on the evening of December 28 at the annual dinner of the Geological Society of America held in the Southern Hotel. The It will be published in SCIENCE. papers of the general sessions will appear in the Bulletin of the Geological Society of America, Vol. 30, and in the Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 9. Dr. C. K. Leith, of the University of Wisconsin, was elected vice-president of the association and chairman of Section E for the coming year; Dr. H. A. Buehler, state geologist of Missouri, member of the council; Dr. W. W. Atwood, of Harvard University, member of the Sectional Committee for five years, and Frank W. DeWolf, state geologist of Illinois, member of the general committee. ROLLIN T. CHAMBERLIN, Secretary SECTION H-ANTHROPOLOGY AND PSY CHOLOGY SECTION H, Anthropology and Psychology, of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, held three sessions at the Baltimore meeting December 26-28. The Thursday afternoon meeting was in conjunction with the American Anthropological Association at which there was an attendance of forty-five. The Friday afternoon session was in conjunction with Section L and the American Psychological Association. The attendance was over one hundred and the Saturday morning session was in conjunction with the Psychological Association also, at which there was an even larger attendance. At the regular business meeting the following were elected to office: Vice-president and chairman of the Section— Professor R. M. Yerkes, University of Minnesota. Member of Council-Professor J. B. Miner, Carnegie Institution of Technology. Sectional Committee for 5 Years-Professor W. S. Hunter, University of Kansas. Member of General Committee-Professor A. E. Jenks, University of Minnesota. At the Thursday afternoon meeting, Colonel Fabio Frassetto, Royal Italian Embassy, presented a paper on the subject, "A unified blank of measurements to be used in recruiting in the allied countries. A plea for the unification of anthropological methods." Following the paper it was moved and carried that a committee of three anthropologists be appointed to consider the paper and recommend action. Chairman, Dr. Aleš Hrdlička announced later the following members of this special committee: Dr. Franz Boas, Dr. G. G. MacCurdy and Dr. Robert Bennett Bean. At the Thursday meeting Professor J. C. Merriam outlined the present plans of the National Research Council for continuation of its organization. The following resolution was presented at that time and formally adopted at the business meeting of the Section, Friday afternoon: Resolved: (a) That Section H heartily approves the plan of the National Research Council for bringing about a closer cooperation of related branches of science favoring research. (b) That, however, it is the opinion of Section H that good results in this direction can only be expected if perfect autonomy and freedom of each branch of science represented is safeguarded in the proposed division. (c) And that it is further the opinion of the Anthropologists of Section H here assembled that the direction of each division as proposed of the National Research Council should be vested, not in a single appointee, but in a board consisting of a representative of each branch of science embraced in the division, and these representatives shall be men whose selection is ratified by the principal associations and bodies of these branches of sci ence. Titles of papers presented at the three sessions are as follows: THURSDAY, P.M. Race in relation to disease: DR. FREDERICK L. The war museum and its place in the National Race origin and history as factors in world politics: PROFESSOR J. C. MERRIAN, National Research Committee. The effect of the war upon the American Child: RUTH MCINTIRE, National Child Labor Committee. Anthropology and Americanization training: PROFESSOR A. E. JENKS, University of Minnesota. Heights and weights of children under six; statistics secured by the Children's Bureau: DR. ROBERT M. WOODBURY, Children's Bureau, U. S. Department of Labor. The war and the race: DR. A. HRDLIČKA, United States National Museum. FRIDAY P.M. Examinations of emotional fitness for warfare: PROFESSOR R. W. WOODWORTH, Columbia University. Army trade tests: DR. BEARDSLEY RUML, Trade Test Division, War Department (Carnegie Institute of Technology). Practical application of army trade tests: MAJOR J. W. HAYES, Trade Test Division, War Department (University of Chicago). Army personnel work; Implications for education and industry: LIEUTENANT COLONEL W. V. BINGHAM, Personnel Branch, General Staff (Carnegie Institute of Technology). Methods of mental testing used in the United States army: MAJOR LEWIS M. TERMAN, Division of Psychology, Surgeon General's Office (Stanford University). Psychological service in army camps: MAJOR GEORGE F. ARPS, Division of Psychology, Surgeon General's Office (Ohio State University). 4:30 P.M. Vice-presidential address: Scientific personnel work in the army: PROFESSOR E. L. THORNDIKE, Columbia University. SATURDAY A.M. The work of the Psychology Committee of the National Research Council and the Division of Psychology, Surgeon General's Office, during 1918: MAJOR ROBERT M. YERKES, Division of Psychology, Surgeon General's Office (University of Minnesota). Results and values of psychological examining in the United States Army: DR. MABEL R. FERNALD, Division of Psychology, Surgeon General's Office (Laboratory of Social Hygiene). The relation of intelligence to occupation as indicated by army data: DR. JAMES E. BRIDGES, Division of Psychology, Surgeon General's Office (Ohio State University). Functions. of psychology in rehabilitation of disabled soldiers: MAJOR B. T. BALDWIN, Division of Reconstruction, Surgeon General's Office (Iowa State University). Official method of appointing and promoting offi- Speech reconstruction in soldiers: PROFESSOR W. E. K. STRONG, Jr., Secretary THE SOCIETY OF AMERICAN FORESTERS THE annual meeting of the Society of American Foresters was held at Baltimore, December 27 and 28, in conjunction with the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The following papers were presented: The effects of destructive lumbering on labor: PROFESSOR B. P. KIRKLAND. The timber census in the northeastern states: PROFESSOR A. B. RECKNAGEL. Marketing of timber from farm woodlands: F. W. BESLEY. The lumber industry and its relation to the war program: PROFESSOR R. C. BRYANT. Use of wood fuel as a war measure: W. D. CLARK. War lumbering in Scotland-some suggestions for American forest policy: E. C. HIRST. Some future possibilities in the forest industries: PROFESSOR F. F. MOON. The structure and value of Parana pine forests of Brazil: H. N. WHITFORD. Forest formations in British Columbia: H. N. WHITFORD. Forest research and war: E. H. CLAPP. Preliminary results of forest experiments in Pennsylvania: PROFESSOR J. S. ILLICK. Some aspects of silvical investigations as an afterthe-war activity: CLYDE LEAVITT. Factors controlling the distribution of forest trees in Arizona: G. A. PEARSON. Gray birch and white pine reproduction: PROFESSOR J. W. TOUMEY. Report of the war committee: PROFESSOR J. W. TOUMEY. The officers of the society elected for 1919 are as follows: President-F. E. OLMSTED. SCIENCE FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1919 VARIABLE STARS1 THE speaker before such a gathering as this, in this eventful year, faces a dilemma in his choice of a subject. The topic which is foremost in all our minds is, beyond a doubt, the share which our comrades in science have had in carrying to a triumphant close the great work of the war-and an account of this would in some respects be the most suitable subject for a vice-president's address. But most of this work can not be described yet, if at all, for reasons of military secrecy; and it is still too early, in any event, to collect and correlate the records of the work of men who are still in the service, especially when almost the whole of the narrator's time has been spent in attempting, in a very humble way, to aid in the universal effort. I have therefore chosen the opposite horn of the dilemma, and propose to speak to you to-day upon a topic of pure science-removed perhaps as far as anything could be from the theater of war, trusting to whatever intrinsic interest the subject may possess to atone for the lack of timely interest, and the defects incident to hurried preparation. Variable Stars have been the objects of human wonder since the appearance of the Nova of Hipparchus led to the preparation of the first catalogue of the positions and magnitudes of the stars. The period of scientific observation of these changes may be dated from Tycho Brahe's observations of the Nova of 1572 and Fabritius' discovery of the periodic variation of Mira Ceti in 1596. For two and a half centuries after this date the number of known variables remained so small that they could almost have been 1 Address of the vice-president and retiring chairman of Section A-Astronomy-of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Baltimore, December 27, 1918. counted on one's fingers. Since then the more assiduous observation of modern times has raised the number into the hundreds, and the application of mechanical methods of search (that is, of photography) has swelled our list into the thousands, with prospects of further increase. It is now possible to classify almost all variables into fairly definite-often very definite-natural groups. In each of these groups more or less numerous empirical regularities of behavior, or "laws" have been detected; and in some instances the number of these relations is large, and the accuracy with which they represent the characteristics of individual stars is surprising. It has even been possible to use these relations to deduce information regarding the distribution of the stars in space, for example, which has revolutionized our previously existing ideas. Yet the humiliating admission must still be made that, in spite of these advances, we know extremely little of the real causes of stellar variation. A satisfactory theory exists in the case of but one group-and this is based on the fundamental assumption that the stars of this class are not really variable at all, but owe their apparent changes to the geometrical accident of eclipse! Of the causes, mechanism and physical relations of the intrinsic variability of the stars we are still in dense ignorance. Could we solve the riddle, there is good reason to hope that the key to some of the fundamental problems of astrophysics would be found. In the study of variable stars, therefore, we have a series of problems which are at once laborious, difficult, fascinating and of great promise, and a summary survey of the field may afford very appropriate material for this address-considering first the methods of observation, and then the known facts, together with such theoretical conclusions as may be drawn from them. From the observational side, the study of variable stars affords excellent examples of the advantages of "scientific management" and of cooperation. Until about a generation ago, the discovery of variables was made by accident, in the course of other work-such as the making of meridian catalogues or star charts, or the search for asteroids, and the rate of discovery was naturally small. The great superiority of photography for this purpose was first effectively realized by Pickering and his assistants at Harvard. By superposition of a positive of a given star-field upon a negative of the same field taken at some other date any variables which may be present can be picked out at once. More than a thousand variables have been discovered at Harvard in this way-a number far exceeding the total which all the astronomers of the world had found by visual means in the preceding three centuries. The process is so easy that Miss Leavitt and her associates when working up a new region, never trouble to identify the previously known variables, but simply rediscover them along with the rest. From the percentage of known variables which are missed (usually a small one) it is possible to estimate how many unknown ones have been passed over and await future discovery. Similar photographic studies of globular clusters led to Bailey's important discovery of the presence of variables in them-the importance of which is only now being fully realized. Mention should also be made of the successful work of Max Wolf and others with the blink microscope. Another fruitful method of discovery is by means of spectrum photographs with the objective prism. Certain types of spectra with bright lines are practically certain to belong to variable stars. Mrs. Fleming and Miss Cannon have thus discovered some two hundred variables of long period and about half of the known galactic novæ. When however a variable star has been discovered, the observer's work has just begun. Its changes must be followed and their laws determined. In many cases the variations are found to be exceedingly regular, both in period and amplitude, so that a very precise mean light curve may be obtained. Such |